Oh My Family!

Broken Words

Almost 2 weeks ago Kuba began stuttering.  It began on April 17.  A language burst? A genetic link to stuttering? Environment? I've done a lot of information gathering since and have learned so much about language disfluency in young children. Supposedly 85% of children in his age group develop a stutter and then grow out of it. His stutter has mostly dissipated for now, but may show up again and disappear again over the next 6 months to a year. This fluency drop was terrifying for me, scary to observe and so frustrating for him. He has been talking since he was a year old, so you can imagine how he felt to not be able to say a sentence with fluency. He has an amazing brain to say the least, and it is my intuition that he grasps things quickly and fully. And if you read my blog you know that with him everything is fast- I have written about this before. So, providing him with an enviroment that allows time for him to process is critical. We have been spending lots of unhuried time out-of-doors and immersed in play to help him assimilate all of the information he is taking in.
Smile, breathe and go slowly - a perfect response for him.

Shoepermarket

Kuba and I went grocery shopping today, and tonight he was telling Anders what we got at the supermarket..."we got bread at the supermarket" and "we got flowers at the supermarket" and- as he was taking off his sneakers....said "and we got these at the shoepermarket."
Pretty funny little kid!

Easter

Easter Chocolate Traditions

Step One: Secure a very large chunk of chocolate
Step Two: Chop chocolate
Step Three; Melt slowly
Step Four: Ladle into mold
Step Five: Rotate mold to coat with chocolate
Step Six: Cool in Refrigerator
Step Seven: Remove from mold
Step Eight: Delight!

When I was little my mother molded all of our Easter chocolates. There were five of us and we always got to choose the kind we wanted - kewpie doll, rabbit, bull dog, or chicken. As a child my brothers and sister and I sat around the table chopping chocolate while my mom melted and made these Easter chocolates for our baskets. I've been wanting to do this myself as an adult. This year my mom came and brought all of her chocolate molds with her. My mom, Anders and I molded chocolate for the first time. And Anders doesn't even like chocolate! We did make some white chocolate for him - and he even got to hide some jelly beans inside his white chocolates.

Out for a Hike

Boots!

Quite honestly, I think I have the two cutest boys in the whole world. And the rain boots just add to it.

Loverboy

Bedtime conversation between two boys as they are wiggling and settling into sleep:

Anders: "Super Kuba"

Kuba: "Super Man"

Anders: "Super Love, Kuba wouldn't it be cool if there was a heart that was like super man and could fly and have super powers. It would be Super Lover Man."

Almost a Dozen a Week

HUG

We all love the book HUG by Jez Alborough. It's been a favorite of ours since Anders was a baby. We must have read it thousands of times and each time it's just as fun as the first time. Now that Anders has begun to read, Kuba gets to hear it in a new way, with a new voice.

The Tooth Fairy Has Arrived!

It's true! Anders lost his first tooth!

Granted, it didn't fall out by itself like most six year olds, but it is out and the tooth fairy did visit. Anders developed an abscess after he ground a small hole in the back of his upper front tooth. He had penicillin for a week and on Thursday topped that off with laughing gas and Novocaine. And then, TA DA - a small adorable tooth was removed from his mouth. The extraction was simple, he said it was fun (!) and he was up and running soon after. Only 19 more baby teeth to go - even though there are 24 baby teeth, we actually all only lose 20, keeping our back molars. Who knew?